| BI Vendor of the Year: SAP |
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Dhiren Doshi, director of telecom for SAP Asia Pacific Japan, reviews the main trends the company has capitalized on to drive growth
Big data and real-time insight.
Our industry continually pushes the boundaries when it comes to volume and complexity of data. Telcos generate, process and store a dizzying amount of data. This is big data. While positive intentions and creative ideas abound, the track record for executing on a good strategy around this or to make any money out of it has been less than sterling.
There is a renewed focus now among leading telcos - almost a realization of sorts - on the potential value of the data they own. This includes customer, location and usage data, to name but a few attributes. Throw into this mix the ability to draw real-time insights, and the possibilities become amazing.
Consider this simple example: being able to provide to retailers in a mall information on the volume and profile of shopper traffic passing through at a specific time window on a specific day. Chances are that this would be a service that the retailers would pay a decent sum for.
Real-time insight from big data, that's the mission.
What do you see as your biggest challenges?
Fortunately, there is little need for evangelization of BI or the next wave of real-time analytics within the telecom industry. Instead, I would put the biggest challenge as helping people see "the art of the possible". Let me explain.
SAP has introduced some revolutionary innovations that we believe will change the way our customers - and our customers' customers - live and interact. The possibilities that these innovations open up are amazing. SAP HANA counts among these innovations and is highly relevant to telcos within the context of big data and real-time insight.
So the challenge shifts to getting different stakeholders and players within the ecosystem to come on board, digest the new capabilities on offer and start rethinking the possibilities.